…Egypt is shaking, Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year-old regime faces its most serious threat ever. The prospect of change in Egypt inevitably raises questions about the oldest and strongest opposition movement in the country, the Muslim Brotherhood , also known as Ikhwan. Can America work with an Egypt where the Ikhwan is part of a transition or even a new government?

The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda’s leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat’s paw of Mubarak and America.

Egypt’s new opposition leader, former International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, has formed a loose alliance with the Brotherhood because he knows it is the only opposition group that can mobilize masses of Egyptians, especially the poor. He says he can work with it to change Egypt. Many scholars of political Islam also judge the Brotherhood is the most reasonable face of Islamic politics in the Arab world today. . . .

The crisis in North Africa has come up unexpectedly for President Obama and Secretary Clinton. They have moved quickly to grasp the challenge. They know the stakes and the delicacy of our options. Neither complacency nor panic is the right American response.

They should not be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood. Living with it won’t be easy but it should not be seen as inevitably our enemy. We need not demonize it nor endorse it. In any case, Egyptians now will decide their fate and the role they want the Ikhwan to play in their future.

(Weekly Standard)– Writing for the Daily Beast, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and adviser to the Obama administration, argues that the U.S. can coexist with a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egypt. The Obama administration “should not be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Riedel writes. “Living with it won’t be easy but it should not be seen as inevitably our enemy. We need not demonize it nor endorse it.”

Here is the key rationale Riedel offers:

The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda’s leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat’s paw of Mubarak and America.

The first part of the first sentence quoted above is flat wrong. The Brotherhood has not renounced violence; it has simply advocated a more selective approach to using it. The rest of the paragraph is only partially true, and masks a much more complicated relationship between the Brotherhood and al Qaeda.

First, we must understand that the Brotherhood is not confined to Egypt, but actually operates around the globe, with full-fledged branches throughout the Middle East and influence organizations in the West. Everywhere the Brotherhood has implanted its radical Islamist seed the organization has adapted to its environment. So, for example, in Egypt, where the Brotherhood was ruthlessly oppressed by Mubarak’s regime, it began to advocate open participation in Egypt’s elections. This was a necessity, as violent attempts to overthrow Mubarak were systematically crushed. Even so, we cannot pretend, as Riedel does, that the Brotherhood has completely eschewed violence.

Barry Rubin argues convincingly in The Muslim Brotherhood, an excellent compendium he edited, that in fact the Brotherhood has no problem with violence.

“Regarding al-Qa’ida,” Rubin writes, “the Brotherhoods [in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan] approve in principle of its militancy, attacks on America, and ideology (or at least respects its ideologues), but views it as a rival.”

Rubin goes on to quote Rajab Hilal Hamida, a member of the Brotherhood in Egypt’s parliament:

From my point of view, bin Ladin, al-Zawahiri and al-Zarqawi are not terrorists in the sense accepted by some. I support all their activities, since they are a thorn in the side of the Americans and the Zionists. . . . [On the other hand,] he who kills Muslim citizens is neither a jihad fighter nor a terrorist, but a criminal murderer. We must call things by their proper names!

In other words, Hamida is not concerned with al Qaeda’s attacks against Americans or Jews. Their killing of other Muslims is what he finds objectionable. This should offer us small comfort.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s most influential theologian, Sheikh Yousef al Qaradawi, has repeatedly justified suicide bombings, called on Muslims to support the insurgency against American forces in Iraq, and justified the killing of civilians. “The martyrdom operations carried out by the Palestinian factions to resist the Zionist occupation are not in any way included in the framework of prohibited terrorism, even if the victims include some civilians,” Qaradawi said in 2003, according to MEMRI. “Those who oppose martyrdom operations and claim that they are suicide are making a great mistake,” Qaradawi added.

The Egyptian branch has asked Qaradawi to be its leader on multiple occasions, but he has turned them down to continue living it Qatar. Qaradawi has flourished in the Persian Gulf nation, where he has hosted one of Al Jazeera’s most popular programs, “Sharia and Life.”